Our love bore the wildest sea
The forest floor was marked with weathered trails, and yet Aelin was touched by the comical notion that too many wandering footsteps wound in circles here—as if the woodland were another world, preying joyously upon the lost, unwitting traveler.
She was but a babe in this new land, but she was an experienced sleuth of lands unknown.
Aelin would always be a girl teetering on soles too weathered for her current naivety, plundering the bounties of new adventure with hungry eyes. Truth be told, she wondered at night if curiosity ought to have been bludgeoned from her being by now. How many times could a bird be burned before it learned not to fly too close?
Too many times, it would seem, as Aelin succumbed to the insatiable appetite of her wandering heart. Beyond each horizon came the small hope of finding Jahra or Aehra, and the infinitesimal dreaming that she might otherwise unearth some stolen secret. An endless song played through her head as she took her careful steps, picking her way through Delumine to the symphony of scholarly hunger.
Scholar. That was her title, now, within the walls of a Court beholden to Dawn.
Fitting, she often thought with a smile. That the sun might finally rise for us.
It nursed her little hopes into fragrant blossoms, and the silver woman was able to map the world with burgeoning boldness. She didn’t dare suffocate Lumaris, despite their honeymooning freedom in this peaceful place, and knew better than to bind her wings too tightly to her body.
Months had passed, and the Fair had yet to muster the courage to fly. Once, she would’ve leapt from a cliff with the founded certainty that the wind would catch upon her outstretched wings. Now, though—now she slumbered upon the fearful woe that one gust would send her careening, and that only the abysmal nothingness would catch her inevitable fall.
After everything, some fears had yet to die.
Only natural, she assured herself. Time. As with all wounds.
Perhaps scholar was to be her new badge, but her heart would always carry the lessons of a healer.
Too often, Aelin’s reflection reminded her of the sash of titles she wore. It felt like a bandolier, laden with biting bullets and strapped too tightly to her person. Some were suffocating, and each of them muddled her identity into something incorrigible.
Warden of the Eventide—the Fair—the Princess of Nowhere.
Would being Aelin be so bad?
A gentle smile played upon her dreaming countenance as she perused the woodland, her heart lost in memories of her precious island. Ard Maleficar had been its name, host to the Eventide, and the heart of Nordlys. Mystery had sprung from the center of it in the form of a mountain, capped at its peak with the frothing heat of a volcano. Its jungles had fostered the deadliest of wildlife, and yet its people had nurtured the wildness of its woods with respect. Her family of scholars and healers; her kinsmen of dreamers and wanderers.
As the ill fortune of her cowardice would have it, she had not been there to see its fall, to watch her people sucked into the swell of the Dark Sea.
Aelin, Protector of the Isles—her steps stuttered under the crushing weight of that mocking reminder, the breath left her in a rush, and she willed her heart to be at peace.
Best not to lose herself to those memories; to those failures. Better to look ahead, to smile for the remainder of the day, and to turn her unspoken woes into soft songs for Lumaris’ ears come dusk. He would understand, as he always did. And she would pay her respects, her apologies, to the fallen.
As she always did.
The Fair’s breath drew deep as her steps paused, caught in a rare beam of fractured sunlight. She tipped her chin back to let the rays catch upon her face, to let the warmth of the midday sky soothe the chill that’d overtaken her.
For a heartbeat, she locked eyes with the curious, twitching head of a bird. It sprung from its branch quickly, its wings a frantic staccato against the wind. She smiled, almost longingly, as her blue feathers twitched.
“Soon,” she promised them. “Soon, we will.”
Soon, she would find the courage.
The forest floor was marked with weathered trails, and yet Aelin was touched by the comical notion that too many wandering footsteps wound in circles here—as if the woodland were another world, preying joyously upon the lost, unwitting traveler.
She was but a babe in this new land, but she was an experienced sleuth of lands unknown.
Aelin would always be a girl teetering on soles too weathered for her current naivety, plundering the bounties of new adventure with hungry eyes. Truth be told, she wondered at night if curiosity ought to have been bludgeoned from her being by now. How many times could a bird be burned before it learned not to fly too close?
Too many times, it would seem, as Aelin succumbed to the insatiable appetite of her wandering heart. Beyond each horizon came the small hope of finding Jahra or Aehra, and the infinitesimal dreaming that she might otherwise unearth some stolen secret. An endless song played through her head as she took her careful steps, picking her way through Delumine to the symphony of scholarly hunger.
Scholar. That was her title, now, within the walls of a Court beholden to Dawn.
Fitting, she often thought with a smile. That the sun might finally rise for us.
It nursed her little hopes into fragrant blossoms, and the silver woman was able to map the world with burgeoning boldness. She didn’t dare suffocate Lumaris, despite their honeymooning freedom in this peaceful place, and knew better than to bind her wings too tightly to her body.
Months had passed, and the Fair had yet to muster the courage to fly. Once, she would’ve leapt from a cliff with the founded certainty that the wind would catch upon her outstretched wings. Now, though—now she slumbered upon the fearful woe that one gust would send her careening, and that only the abysmal nothingness would catch her inevitable fall.
After everything, some fears had yet to die.
Only natural, she assured herself. Time. As with all wounds.
Perhaps scholar was to be her new badge, but her heart would always carry the lessons of a healer.
Too often, Aelin’s reflection reminded her of the sash of titles she wore. It felt like a bandolier, laden with biting bullets and strapped too tightly to her person. Some were suffocating, and each of them muddled her identity into something incorrigible.
Warden of the Eventide—the Fair—the Princess of Nowhere.
Would being Aelin be so bad?
A gentle smile played upon her dreaming countenance as she perused the woodland, her heart lost in memories of her precious island. Ard Maleficar had been its name, host to the Eventide, and the heart of Nordlys. Mystery had sprung from the center of it in the form of a mountain, capped at its peak with the frothing heat of a volcano. Its jungles had fostered the deadliest of wildlife, and yet its people had nurtured the wildness of its woods with respect. Her family of scholars and healers; her kinsmen of dreamers and wanderers.
As the ill fortune of her cowardice would have it, she had not been there to see its fall, to watch her people sucked into the swell of the Dark Sea.
Aelin, Protector of the Isles—her steps stuttered under the crushing weight of that mocking reminder, the breath left her in a rush, and she willed her heart to be at peace.
Best not to lose herself to those memories; to those failures. Better to look ahead, to smile for the remainder of the day, and to turn her unspoken woes into soft songs for Lumaris’ ears come dusk. He would understand, as he always did. And she would pay her respects, her apologies, to the fallen.
As she always did.
The Fair’s breath drew deep as her steps paused, caught in a rare beam of fractured sunlight. She tipped her chin back to let the rays catch upon her face, to let the warmth of the midday sky soothe the chill that’d overtaken her.
For a heartbeat, she locked eyes with the curious, twitching head of a bird. It sprung from its branch quickly, its wings a frantic staccato against the wind. She smiled, almost longingly, as her blue feathers twitched.
“Soon,” she promised them. “Soon, we will.”
Soon, she would find the courage.
Speech, @Drune
Art by Rhiaan, Table by Rayoflight
